Maine Comment

The Maine enactment broadens the range of individuals who have standing by deleting specific gender references and making the language gender neutral to ensure equal treatment for every child regardless of the circumstances of the parent or parents.

§1923.__Parties to proceeding

The following individuals must be joined as parties in a proceeding to adjudicate parentage:

1.__Mother.__The mother of the child; and

2.__Person whose parentage to be adjudicated.__A person whose parentage of the child is to be adjudicated.

Comment

(This is section 603 of the UPA.)

Source: UPA (1973) § 9.

This section partially follows and partially rejects the UPA (1973) requirements regarding who must be named as parties in a parentage proceeding. First, contra to UPA (1973), the child is not a necessary party. Few states require children as necessary parties. Further, with the widespread use of DNA testing, such a requirement has outlived its usefulness. On the other hand, failure to join a child as a party may later result in a child's successful collateral attack on the original determination of paternity to be filed by the child. This subject is discussed more fully in the comment to § 637, infra.

Second, as far as can be ascertained, no state requires the children born to a woman during marriage to be named as parties in a divorce proceeding. Divorce decrees generally serve as res judicata in the event of a subsequent challenge to the decree's determination of parentage. Id.

Maine Comment